


Home for the Holidays

by samebirthdaygirl



Category: Avengers (Comics), Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Comics), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: F/M, Female Character of Color, POV Character of Color, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 04:49:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/781969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samebirthdaygirl/pseuds/samebirthdaygirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agent Jhing dela Cruz of SHIELD avails of a special "rewards program" where she gets to take the good Captain Steve Rogers home for Christmas. A one-shot inspired by <a href="http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/11264.html?thread=26677248#t26677248">this Avengerkink fill</a>, and the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/551830">two</a> <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/561214/chapters/1002499?view_adult=true">fics</a> it created.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home for the Holidays

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Author376](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Author376/gifts), [Jaune_Chat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaune_Chat/gifts), [Not_You](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/gifts).



> I don't write a lot at all, and I know no beta editors so this is not beta-edited. Inspired by [this Avengerkink fill](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/11264.html?thread=26677248#t26677248), and the [two](http://archiveofourown.org/works/551830) [fics](http://archiveofourown.org/works/561214/chapters/1002499?view_adult=true) it created. Jing dela Cruz and her family are my own. Dedicated to [Author376](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Author376/pseuds/Author376) whose [Melting Pot](http://archiveofourown.org/series/23866) got me thinking about why Marvel Entertainment doesn't have so many Asian characters in its titles when they have a number of Asian artists working for them.

Agent Jhing de la Cruz has the blood and the mindset of a worker ant and a worker bee deeply ingrained into her system: do it right, do it perfectly, do it because you should. Plus, her own personal motto is don't let them know you've got them but get them really good. No wonder she fits so well into SHIELD, after a stint as a news researcher in her previous country of origin (even if she was originally a pharmacy graduate, these things happen when you're Asian sometimes).

She knows worker insects have no dating life, while being Asian means high expectations both on the job and as a person. So pushing 30 and still single, she's heard no end to the "Ay hija, so are you even planning to get married? It would be terrible if we died without grandchildren with your skill and pedigree!" from both her parents. Never mind that they live separately and are with other people now. And of course, Christmas is in a day, which means there will be no escaping these questions from a family made of Christmas nazis.

So when she receives a commendation from Director Fury for her work (which may or may not have included reverse-formulating sex pollen over Thanksgiving, impromptu translation during a hostage crisis in Manila, and getting senior agents to and from drop points in record time -- thank you Manila driving skills), she puts on a touch of lip gloss and blush, tries to tame her wavy mane into a low ponytail, and gives him her sunniest-but-still-very-professional smile as he tells her she's eligible for a rewards program featuring 24 hours with Captain America. Fury barely catches himself returning her smile as she walks out of his room, and grumbles something like, "Damn sunshine-y tropical elves..."

And that is how she finds herself face to face (or, more accurately, face to chest) with Captain Steve Rogers the night before Christmas -- close to midnight, really. He chuckles as her brown eyes pop out from a bundle of hat, scarves, coat and jackets. While SHIELD provides outfits for agents that somehow beat the chill, she can never find clothing articles that are just as warm outside of work.

"Excuse me, would you happen to be Miss Josephine-?"

"Oh, oh hi Captain Rogers! Please, call me Jhing," she grins, looking a bit flustered. "’Josephine’ is for Director Fury, Assistant Director Hill, all the senior agents and other government guys, but we're off duty today, okay?"

"Well, in that case, please call me Steve," he smiles without skipping a beat, before giving her another once over, seeing a suitcase and a box, wrapped in straw-like ribbon and full of "Fragile" signs, both of which look large enough to fit her if she tried to curl up as tightly as possible inside either one.

"So, Jhing, what can I do for you?"

"We-ell," she huffs, "I'm having Christmas brunch with my mom tomorrow and I just broke up with my loser boyfriend last month, so I was wondering if we could fly there tonight and you could be my date please?"

His eyebrow lifts and a lopsided smile appears. "Not a problem."

He makes quick work of carrying the suitcase and the box, which seems to weigh like she's packed her whole apartment in it.

During the trip, he learns that she talks an acre a minute while trying her best to maintain politeness, she has an older sister and a younger brother, she must be crazy-prepared when she spends any holidays with family, she likes to draw ("I thought I'd be a manga artist -- that's Japanese comics, I'll see if the Director or Agent Coulson can add that to your ongoing education on the 21st century -- or a fashion designer, but my mom said I'd earn more money cooking up drugs for Pfizer and Roche"), she finds accomplishment attractive in a partner (he coughs up his drink when she shares that she dated a classmate from her all-girls' school because he didn't have her pegged to swing that way), she never sleeps during long-haul flights (“if the flight lasts for five hours or more, it's an advantage considering our line of work, y'know, but it can be a bitch because I'm jet-lagged as fuck whenever I visit my dad halfway around the world"), and she has a terrible habit of apologizing for things beyond her control.

From the airport, a taxi takes them to a hotel in a seedy part of Long Beach that's surprisingly clean and smoke-free, where he unwraps her to find that her curvy bottom balances her tiny breasts and she tastes a bit like cool, mild, sweet coconut juice enjoyed by the beach.

 

 

* * *

 

Steve learns that "family" for Jhing means some 30 men and women of varying ages armed with children ranging from toddlers to teenagers in a two-storey house meant for six people. While only her grandparents, her mother and her stepfather actually live there for some 350 days in a year, Christmas is serious business for Jhing's clan: the front has a five-pointed star lantern that lights up at night, and inside there’s a wall of sleeping bags that will cover virtually every single inch of floor space come evening. While trying to restore balance to a leaning tower of Christmas tree, he finds beside it a tiny nativity scene complete with three Wise Men, camels, shepherds, sheep and an eight-pointed star. 

After attending early morning Mass, where Steve scratches his head over the unfamiliar hymns (some parts sound Spanish, but not really, though at least they sound alternately melodious and upbeat), he's soon drafted into kitchen duty: crunching garlic, then carrying, carving and chopping the lechon (roast suckling pig), setting the head aside for whoever in the family wants to eat it ("my Aunt Josie and Uncle Joe fight over it every year "). Her cooking skills only extend to rice and fried food, making her a disgrace in a clan that's got at least three chefs and a heritage of cooking greatness, but she defends herself by saying she could possibly still make ube halaya, pondering the mysteries of life while churning purple yam and milk in a boiling vat half her size.

The smells of roast pig, tamarind, garlic and onions soon fill the air. It's been a while since Steve's had dinner with a family outside of Bucky's, but that memory settles into his skin like the burnished custard flan Jhing's sister Elsa has cooked up -- warm, soft, fuzzy, more sweet than bitter. He's treated to a feast of savory, sweet and salty viands with names he can barely pronounce, all served family style -- lechon, sinigang sa miso ("this is different from the miso soup served in Japan" because the sour soup is made of tamarind and the miso is flat), lengua, adobo, nilagang gulay, tocino, sisig, kaldereta, jamonado and tadtad itik all served with heaping plates of sinangag (how can toasted rice stay so fluffy?). Jhing's mother plies him dish upon dish once she notices him scarfing each plate down; they are mutually appreciative of not wasting any body part of any animal when cooking food. Dessert is (besides the flan) apparently a piping hot rice cake with egg, coconut shavings and cheese is served with some hot cocoa and coffee -- so bibingka's not his thing, but that cocoa was very thick and that coffee was delightfully bitter. Brunch becomes an eating contest where he beats her brother Lester and cousins Jason, Jon, James (Jun) and James (Jamie), although everyone present unanimously agrees that Jhing eats as much as Jason, a burly bear of a man who’s just two inches shorter than Steve and who came closest to beating him.

Both Jhing and Steve try to steer clear of discussions about work ("I do marketing for a drugstore chain and you've returned from your tour of duty in Afghanistan to become the head of our security department, but otherwise please don't volunteer this information unless they ask") and politics ("My family is made of crazy Republicans!"), but with her family being the way they are, she wonders how they don't seem to recognise him from the news on TV, where he's been a permanent fixture since May. At least nobody has brought out the photo albums, VHS tapes, and YouTube videos, which is usually par for the course for a boyfriend's first visit to the family nest.

After a round of karaoke, where Jhing's subjected to heckling while he roundly impresses them with "Besame Mucho" (she makes him beg off when her mother and uncles ask him to sing Sinatra's "My Way," because _even if they're no longer in the Philippines it always pays to be safe_ ) her sister Elsa and Jason teach him "all the Tagalog and Kapampangan that count" to the twitching eyes of their grandmother. Which means he can now say "fuck you and your mother" in two ways without Director Fury batting his eyelash (he may have been both SHIELD director and colonel for almost a century, but with most Filipinos catching both spoken and written English very well there's still a slim hope Fury's never bothered to learn either language of Jhing's), though they have difficulty getting him to lose the long "ey" sound so that he delivers the lines like a native speaker. His cultural assimilation includes being asked to raise and lower the pabitin of latticed wood at the lawn outside, smiling guiltily when Jhing's some dozen nieces and nephews are forced to clamber up him to reach the tiny presents hanging from the lattice. All too soon, it's time to unwrap their presents (he wonders how she fit all those toys, clothes, bags, shoes, and food in that box they brought over from her New York apartment) and have their photos taken as a family at the living room where the Christmas tree teeters to one side.

Unfortunately, the clan is very conservative, so even if the Council of Elders know that Steve's "dating" Jhing (when asked the dreaded "Ay hija, so when are you planning to get married?" he replies, "We're just enjoying our time together for now, Sir, Ma'am") they simply won't let him stay the night. Of course, it's not like there's space for a 6-foot-tall blonde man at this point in time anyway, and besides the 24 hours are nearly up. So she returns with him to the hotel in the late afternoon, where they soon tumble into bed for another round of activities sure to get her an earful from her mother and a round of fist-bumps from her siblings and cousins.

"Well, Jhing, thanks for a great time," he grins warmly afterwards, leaning to face her with his head propped under his hand.

"It's nothing," she shrugs and blushes.

He shakes his head and smiles appreciatively, ducking his head, his voice growing a bit rough, "No, really. It's been a while since I felt at home. It's ... nice."

And then it hits her: Captain America may be the hero who saved thousands in World War II, but Steve Rogers is a man out of time, with no home or known family in this century. She swallows and sniffles a bit when she realises just how much he may have missed sharing meals with the people he loves.

When she finally returns to her family home and he packs his things ("I'll just tell them you were suddenly called to the office for a security emergency, and that you regret not being able to stay for dinner"), they both wonder who, exactly, Director Fury meant this reward to be for.

 

* * *

 

 

Come the new year, having spent most of her enforced December holiday with family, she finds a rough, unsigned sketch of them together singing karaoke, with her nieces and nephews running around in the background and her grown-up relatives cheering for them on the couch at the side, plus a note asking for the recipes to some of the Christmas brunch dishes.

**Author's Note:**

> Some things:
> 
> 1) I did edit this a bit from the original on my Tumblr (where I am also, surprise, samebirthdaygirl). But, still no beta. Sorry. Original prompt at http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/11264.html?thread=26677248#t26677248 by the way. 
> 
> 2) I wish I was kidding, but people used to get shot/knifed in the Philippines all the time for singing Sinatra's "My Way" in karaoke bars until very recently. As far as I know it's banned in the large cities now, at least. Google is your friend. 
> 
> 3) No use denying it isn't a Mary Sue, but honestly the driving skills are a Manila thing; you need to drive like your life depends on it if you want to survive the monster that is the Manila traffic jam. 
> 
> 4) FOOD PORN TIME! (The ones I don't provide are family secrets, sorry.)  
> * Sinigang sa miso = http://blog.junbelen.com/2012/09/19/how-to-make-sinigang-na-salmon-sa-miso-salmon-tamarind-miso-soup/ in the US, though in the Philippines it would be http://www.pinoyhapagkainan.com/sinigang-na-bangus-sa-miso/  
> * Lengua = http://panlasangpinoy.com/2010/09/21/lengua-in-mushroom-sauce-recipe/ though these days any animal tongue is used  
> * Adobo = http://panlasangpinoy.com/2009/08/01/filipino-food-pork-adobo-recipe/  
> * Tocino = http://blog.junbelen.com/2011/03/29/how-to-make-pork-tocino-sweet-cured-pork/  
> * Sisig = http://panlasangpinoy.com/2009/07/26/filipino-food-appetizer-pulutan-sisig/  
> * Jamonado = http://desarapen.blogspot.com/2004/12/pork-jamonado.html  
> * Kaldereta = http://panlasangpinoy.com/2009/03/01/beef-kaldereta/  
> * Bibingka = http://panlasangpinoy.com/2010/03/22/rice-cake-bibingka-recipe/  
> * Ube Halaya = http://filipinostylerecipe.com/2012/10/ube-halaya/  
> FYR, adobo (meat stewed in vinegar marinade) and sinigang (sour soup) are in the running for national dish of the Philippines. Please note that they are prepared and cooked with drastically different ingredients and in drastically different styles per province/city in the country so that no two adobo or sinigang are ever alike; what ties each dish together is exactly what I've indicated above. Oh, and nilagang gulay is simply broiled vegetables, though the vegetables in question are radish tops, bokchoy and other leafy greens that would be more familiar to Asian Americans. 
> 
> 5) The Filipino languages, like Tagalog and Visaya, use an extended "ah" sound for the letter "ay", and not the "ey" sound of American English. Yes, there are more than a hundred languages in the country, not dialects -- for your reference, the Tagalog and Visaya will never understand each other unless one side learns the language of the other. It's like in China: Hokkien/Fookien, Mandarin and Cantonese are completely different languages, though at least there's a standardized writing system to tie them (loosely) together.


End file.
